Abdul El-Sayed has won the Michigan primary, but the margins do not speak to great chances in the November elections. El-Sayed has taken the nomination, but he has taken it by less than 1%. There are 725,000 Michigan Democrats he could not win over, and considering the heated nature of El-Sayed's positions and the deep cut divide between the left and the center of the party, there is no guarantee that those 725,000 voters will turn out for him come the Midterms. Worse still, the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd may very well "Vote Red, Never Sayed."
It's still an uphill battle for the GOP. The party has thuroughly tied itself to Donald Trump, and that decision has come to haunt them now that the President is underwater nationwide. In many races, affiliation with Trump has become a mark of ill omen. Furthermore, Republicans have held the infamous reputation of being the Party of Big Business for a hundred years, and with the addition of wartime gas prices and Trump's nonsenical tarrif regime, it's going to be very hard for any Republican to convince voters that they have the answers to their economic woes.
But while this may clear a path to victory for the likes of James Talarico or Troy Jackson, it's not the same story for El-Sayed. Every other race in America may be about Donald Trump, but the race in Michigan will be about El-Sayed himself. He is a Muslim, he is vehimently anti-Israel, and this is a suite of features that to this day does not sit well with many Americans. He has enemies that are capable of spending tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to paint him as an Islamic extremist and to play on the worst impulses of the voting public. There are many Americans who are not going to be swayed by AIPAC propaganda, but last night clearly shows that even within El-Sayed's own party, there are still many people who see him as unacceptable.
This entire race comes down to whether or not those 725,000 Stevens voters will value party loyalty over their personal values. In something of an ironic twist, it's an inversion of the usual scenario, wherein progressives are continually asked to set aside everything they believe in to support the right wing of the party. Will the moderates and center-right be willing to do the same now that it is asked of them? I doubt it.
